The Nokia N900 Is Not A Phone
From http://www.maemo-guru.com/2009/11/the-nokia-n900-i
Posted on 2009-11-12 22:00:05 UTC.
I’ve been using the Nokia N900 as my primary device for a few weeks now, and have made some really interesting observations. One of the things that has really stood out is the fact that this thing is seriously not a phone. It’s not even a smartphone, to be honest. There are a number of factors contributing to this, some of which could be fixed in the future.
Lack of portrait mode – I hate to beat a dead horse, but the lack of a portrait mode throughout the phone seriously hinders its ability to be used as a real phone. Of course, the actual phone application works in portrait mode, but to activate the phone application, you have to use the N900 awkwardly in landscape mode. It makes using the phone features quite a hassle, as you’re constantly switching back and forth between orientations. It also eliminates the ability to use the phone one-handed, which means it’s really awkward to manipulate while driving, walking, or doing pretty much anything other than standing still.
(It should be noted that, as seen in the screenshot above, the phone dialer application *can* be used in landscape mode)
No MMS – regardless of how much you do or do not use this feature, there’s really no excuse for not having it. I’ve already been frustrated by the lack, both when friends tried to send me photos and when I needed to share a photo with other friends.
No voice dial – this is another key feature that nearly every other phone on the market has, and the N900 doesn’t. The latest Nokias have speaker-independent voice dial, and I use this quite often. Given that it’s such a hassle to use the phone itself to initiate a phone call, not having voice dial stings even worse.
Bluetooth issues – I’ve been trying to use the N900 with a Plantronics Voyager Pro lately, to get around the issues with the phone part. Unfortunately, there are issues there, as well. After roughly 30 minutes of being connected (not necessarily on a call the whole time) the Bluetooth freezes up and disconnects the headset, but still shows that it’s connected onscreen. The only way I’ve figured out to fix this is disabling Bluetooth on the N900 and then re-enabling it.
From my usage, the Nokia N900 is more like using a connected netbook than it is a smartphone. The phone features definitely feel like an afterthought, which will make it a headache for some people. While the vast majority of my usage is email, IM, and web browsing, I still use my phone as a phone at times, and doing so with the N900 is really really frustrating. Hopefully a future update will address some of these issues, as they’re all software issues that could easily be fixed.
To be fair, Nokia doesn’t market the N900 as a phone, at all, and I hope they don’t in the future.